y gentlemen spending on an average
twenty-five thousand dollars a year makes to a grocer or draper.
Besides, this class of customer demands a first-rate article, and
consequently it is worth while to keep it in stock. The fishmonger
knows that twenty great houses within ten miles require their handsome
dish of fish for dinner as regularly as their bread and butter. It
becomes worth his while therefore to secure a steady supply. In this
way smaller people profit, and country life becomes pleasant to them
too, inasmuch as the demands of the rich contribute to the comfort of
those in moderate circumstances.

Let us pass to the daily routine of an affluent country home. The
breakfast hour is from nine to eleven, except where hunting-men or
enthusiasts in shooting are concerned. The former are often in the
saddle before six, and young partridge-slayers may, during the first
fortnight of September--after that their ardor abates a bit--be found
in the stubbles at any hour after sunrise.

A country-house breakfast in the house of a gentlemen with from three
thousand a year upward, when several guests are in the house, is a
very attractive meal. Of course its degree of excellence varies, but
we will take an average case in the house of a squire living on his
paternal acres with five thousand pounds a year and knowing how to
live.

It is 10 A.M. in October: family prayers, usual in nine country-houses
out of ten, which a guest can attend or not as he pleases, are over.
The company is gradually gathering in the breakfast-room. It is an
ample apartment, paneled with oak and hung with family pictures. If
you have any appreciation for fine plate--and you are to be pitied if
you have not--you will mark the charming shape and exquisite
chasing of the antique urn and other silver vessels, which shine as
brilliantly as on the day they left the silversmiths to Her Majesty,
Queen Anne. No "Brummagem" patterns will you find here.

On the table at equidistant points stand two tiny tables or
dumb-waiters, which are made to revolve. On these are placed sugar,
cream, butter, preserves, salt, pepper, mustard, etc., so that every
one can help himself without troubling others--a great desideratum,
for many people are of the same mind on this point as a well-known
English family, of whom it was once observed that they were very nice
people, but didn't like being bored to pass the mustard.

On the sideboard are three beautiful silver dishes wi